Russia has increased its support for the embattled government of Uzbekistan, announcing that it will soon conduct joint military exercises with the regime of President Islam Karimov. The announcement by Sergei Ivanov, Russia's defense minister, was broadcast in Moscow after a meeting with Karimov. Ivanov said the maneuvers would be in central Uzbekistan this summer, the first since Uzbekistan broke from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Days after a deadly eviction of peasants by paramilitaries, anti-privatization protests are shaking Paraguay. Neither have made any significant international media coverage. Cuba's Prensa Latina reports June 27 that a national mobilization has coverged on Asuncion, the capital, demanding the government halt the pending Law 1615 that calls for further privatization of state services. The protesters have blocked roads and filled streets with massive marches, paralyzing the capital. Led by the National Front in Defense of National Heritage and Public Property, the National Small Farmers Federation, the Front in Defense of Life and Sovereignty, and the Coordination of Small Farmers Organizations, protesters pledge the campaign will escalate if the government goes through with further privatizations.

A little-reported story from Paraguay on an eviction of peasants from contested lands by the private gunmen of local big land-owners (apparently Brazilians), backed up by the army and police. It is the biotech opponents who are distributing this news, as the landowners are seeking to plant genetically-modified soy. As we recently noted, there is a growing US military presence in Paraguay at the moment. It is ostensibly there to train and back up Paraguayan security forces in a crackdown on supposed Islamic terror networks in the country, but here is an ugly taste of how the new prowess could be used. Our friend Javiera Rulli of Argentina's Grupo de Reflexion Rural (GRR) provides this report:

If the Iraq war is not about oil, somebody forgot to tell the editors of the New York Times and, it seems, the leadership of the People's Republic of China. On June 27, the Times runs a front-page story on the current $18.5 billion bid to purchase Unocal by the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), which the Bush administration is considering barring on national security grounds. Drawing an unsettling analogy "with Japan in the 1930's," the Times says China's bid for control of a US oil major is also seen by Beijing explicitly in terms of national security—an inexorable result of growing Chinese energy consumption combined with US military control of the Persian Gulf:

A friend writes from Philadelphia, scene of the recent anti-biotech protests (where, as we noted, a police officer died of a heart attack):

Please donate bail money!
A dozen or so protesters were arrested at the Biodevestation protests in Philadelphia this weekend. They are all still in jail, and need your help to get out. Only 3 people have been arraigned - it's $960 for each one of them to get bailed out. There is at least 1 other person facing felonies - one from Quebec who is facing 2 counts of felony assault. Everyone else is facing misdemanors - disorderly conduct and misdemanor. Thier bails should be set over the next 12 hours, but we know we'll need a lot of money to get them out. Every little bit helps, so please send money. You can Western Union it to Cynthia Pitt,Philadelphia. You can also paypal it to cyndipitt@gmail.com. Or just bring it to the jail support vigil at 8th and Race Streets in Philadelphia.

Freedom's on the march. That's why a South Asian man gets detained by the police for taking photos on the streets of New York. Gotta love the irony. Thanks to the Independent Press Association's Voices That Must Be Heard, "the best of New York's ethnic and immigrant press," for passing this along.

Excerpt from a report by Moroccan news agency MAP (via M&C News):

Laayoune, 19 June: Hundreds of citizens today Sunday held a protest at the Hassan I Airport in Laayoune against the scheming intentions and provocative attempts of the Spanish pro-separatist activists who are trying to visit the town despite the Moroccan authorities' refusal to let them step on national soil.

From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), June 20:

The local leader of Hamas was arrested in an often lawless frontier area where Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina meet. Brazilian and Paraguayan news agencies confirmed June 17 that Saiel Bashar Yahya Al Atary and 21 others described as Islamic terrorists had been arrested by Brazilian federal police in the city of Foz de Iguazu. The men were charged with being part of an international ring that committed credit card fraud, counterfeited documents and was involved in drug trafficking.